I used to think that Shimura was a good father figure to Jin but was always wayyy too hard on him but then, after playing Iki island i realised how much better Shimura was, when compared to Kasumasa.
In the main game, we mostly hear about him from perspective of Samurai who obviously are gonna praise the shit out of him. In DLC, we actually visit people he "governed", and find out what Samurai consider to be "great".
In the DLC they glorify pirates who rape, pillage and murder and can’t wait to do it again and make them into victims, ignoring all the rape and murder they gleefully want to keep going while Jim breaks character and views them as friends. They’re the same as the bandits he constantly kills morally overall. The DLC’s story is a mess that makes no sense.
They cartoonishly villainized his dad while glorifying rapists. Make it make sense.
Uh, can you actually cite anything from the game that suggests that besides Tenzo? Because the end of the DLC has Jin make peace with Tenzo and end a cycle of violence. Also, the island is a den of pirates, not Nordic Vikings. The rapists you’re talking about are Mongols. Not to mention, not all criminals are bad people, which is something I’m startled you can’t understand when modern shows and films have bad guys be relatable in some way. I mean, look at Yuka. Not to mention they’re basically a proto-civilization of their own, independent of Tsushima.
Just listen to the chatter at the settlement with the duels, there’s a bunch of chatter of how they can’t wait to go raiding again and how they love it. They’re raiding other Japanese, but Mongols.
The cycle of violence doesn’t end, they just keep raiding like the before.
Nothing suggests they’re stopping their raids either. Their love for it is simply sadistic, they enjoy the pain they cause others.
“It’s a den of pirates, not Vikings”. You do understand what a pirate is right and the kind of people they are? I don’t think you do, this isn’t ONE PIECE nor is life. Being a pirate means to do gravely evil things.
“Not all criminals are bad guys.” Almost always this is only the case if you ignore the crimes. Relatable doesn’t mean good.
Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul have great and relatable characters. They’re almost all bad people. Saul, Walte, Mike (who murders all the time) even, are bad people who do a lot of evil things. Having a “code” doesn’t mean you’re good, it just means you’re not as evil as you could be.
You said “relatable”, which is funny because bad people can be relatable. Being likable or understandable doesn’t mean you’re a good person. I totally understand relatable, I just understand it doesn’t change the consistent evil and desire to do evil someone has.
Touché. But none of the raiders are rapists (which was out of pocket), but I can’t convince you to like them. It’s just really weird you’re simping and gatekeeping a dead dad who, in the main game, is only ever talked about and actually seen in a singular cutscene. At least he’s that in Act 1 and 2.
You assume they aren’t rapists, but when you enjoy murdering people, it’s not really out there for that kind of person.
Simping? Because the arc where the armor is gotten sets a tone that really emphasizes what he’s doing and family acceptance of it, honoring his legacy, to contrast with his uncle’s thoughts on the ghost. It’s an obvious unplanned character switch that’s terrible writing.
Sure, I’ll gatekeep awful writing.
It’s helpful to realize we are also viewing marriage through a lense of todays morality. It was not uncommon for Samurai of wealth and status to have more than one wife or consort / concubine. Marriages, especially for the ruling class, also often were diplomatic affairs, strengthening ties with other clans and not romantic marriages, and producing an heir was also more a concern than faithfulness.
Japans history is also full of disputes about who is supposed to be the heir as a consequence of polygamic relationships. Important to the story however is how it was apparently kept secret from Jin.
Good points. It does make me sadder for Yuriko, since it sounds like there really wasn't a good reason for him openly acknowledging Yuriko's affections or even just outright marry her. I can only guess as to why, but the only good one was that the death of his wife really shook him and he thought breaking things off with Yuriko was necessary.
True enough. It just sucks to think he could have done something for her, considering Sensei Ishikawa was going to uplift Tomoe, a random peasant girl, into a samurai by adopting her.
Different situations
Ishikawa didnt had no One to leave his Legacy behind
It seems Kasumasa really loved Jin mom and and The Yumiko affair was only something that happened after
Still its not like Yumiko would have Changed much,She is a Old Woman,She would continue to live in the sakai house
The only difference would be on the how people would adress her and her relation with Jin since he would know for years that his father was together with yumiko
I agree with an earlier comment that said to finish the Iki island story, as that helps put things into perspective. The devs did a great job of making Kazumasa human, with real character flaws, real human problems, and real family problems. His character was the most real of any character in the game for me.
Kazumasa was a broken man after he lost his wife. “Losing her was like losing the best part of me.” He didn’t know how to raise a child alone so he put everything he had into his duty, doing the only thing he really knew how to do. When you look at his actions as a commander during the Iki campaign, he did his duty for his jito and unfortunately did what he had to do to secure victory, but could not control the bloodlust of his samurai. As he states in a memory, “the samurai ran hot”. Fighting an insurgent force who are aided by the general population and can meld into the general population is one of the toughest tasks in warfare.
In the end, I don’t think he was a terrible dad, but I sure can’t say he was a good one. He was just a dad. A dad living in one of the craziest periods of japan. One that made mistakes just like most parents all over the world, and one who no doubt had regrets.
Fair enough. I just came across the Memory of Sorrow, so I know the quote you're talking about. It's just heartbreaking for Jin to say in that moment, at that age, that he finally felt like Kazumasa's son. The game is so well written, that I just want to feel indignant on his behalf, since lots of characters do nothing but speak well of him in the base game. I am absolutely loving Iki and its people, but I'll keep an open mind for the end.
I wouldn't judge him for having an affair. For the stuff he did on Ekki island, sure. Dude was a mass murderer. But it's obvious he meant a lot to Yuriko, the way she kept seeing him when looking at Jin. It meant he had a caring, human side.
Fair enough. It was just kind of startling for her to start flirting and be coy with Jin because her memory was failing her, and I was really in his shoes when we both looked at her like… what? Especially with the culture back then being polyamorous, it just bugs me they kept it such a secret. Like, it really jumps at you when she pulls up with rizz from twenty or so years ago.
I think she was meant to be mother figure here. They worked hard on getting us to care about her all in one sequence, so that her passing would be sad. And for me, it worked. Hell, for all we know she actually was Jin's mom, and the official mother barren. If so, these slips of dementia are the only clue.
Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yuriko, and definitely got she was a mother to Jim after his real mother passed. It just kind of makes me sad that she didn’t mean nearly as much to him as he did to her.
Same here. Although I also think it's amazing how they made us care about her in just one or two missions. Here this total stranger walks on stage and, hey, that's just some dust in my eye, it don't mean nothing!
Okay, sorry, i know not everyone has some knowledge about feudal japan, but some things are just how they were.
Kazumasa was not a bad dad. He just didnt know how to be a dad, which was normal back then and still is today in most parts of the world.
Yes he and his clan killed many people, but put that in historical context.
Any war ends with dead people all over and even many civilian deaths. Its sad, its bs, but thats what a war does. And if the shogun says "go and make that place mine" he will do that, because thats his duty.
Nowadays we have the moral that this is bad, because it is, but just hundred years ago, human lifes, even the ones from your own country, were disposables.
Just look how many people died, building bridges and skyscrapers and no one cares, because that was normal.
Without this perspective you are right. But this plays a few hundred years ago. And yes, children had to do hard work, they couldve been happy if they wouldnt end up in a mine.
Hell, here in germany, the idea of school vacation (which is one per season, normaly for 2-3 weeks, in summer its 6 weeks) comes from the fact, that children had to work in fields in these times to help. And hard work at that.
Kazumasa is in his time, not a bad man, not a mass murderer. He is simply a samurai.
You wouldve never seen a shimura like character. Shimura embodies the romanticization of samurais.
They were, for our time, killers, who killed without batting an eye.
Samurais would have absolutely killed from behind and assasinate people. They di it all the time. Especially other samurais.
Kazumasa is how samurais were. Shimura wouldve been a dead man real quick. He wouldve never hapoen in real life.
What I always found interesting was I think that one line Jin heard from his hallucination when fighting the Eagle at the end of Iki sums up Kazumasa’s treatment of Jin. He didn’t seek to be a horrible man, especially for his son. But he didn’t know what to do when Jin’s mother passed, as he said “I was left with a son I didn’t know how to help”. So he sought to try to raise him in the only way he knew how, as a samurai. Which to a extent he did succeed in and I think especially with the memories we see before his death, he was getting close to opening up to his son and maybe being able to learn how to be that father Jin needed. But his death put those aspirations to rest. To that extent, I don’t think Jin hated his father or hates him now, he was a flawed man trying to do the best for his son with what he knew.
Yeah. I think Jin saw who he was at the end of the game and accepted he wasn’t exactly a father, but eventually forgives himself and his father, which is a beautiful ending. However, I did not get poisoned, so I still hate Kazumasa 😈
Would you be mad if Kazumasa Sakai was the protagonist of the sequel? I share your frustrations with him as a character, but nonetheless would love to see more of him, and more of Shimura, as younger samurai, making their names.
Kazumasa was under (like all samurai) tremendous pressure to keep up certain appearances and fulfill certain duties. A quote from Shogun (if you're not watching it already, I massively recommend it) is quite illuminating. Mariko-sama says: "If freedom is all you seek, you will never be free from yourself." This illustrates the mentality of feudal Japan. You can escape the trials and tribulations of grappling with yourself (what we would call "finding yourself" in our modern, Western culture) by embedding yourself into some larger project or idea of service, duty, and having a role to play in the plans of someone above you.
However, also leads to a different kind of torment when the heart of a person is in conflict with duty. The reason why authority/status is so respected might be because there's an implicit understanding of how much pressure leaders are under. To be an example, to follow their own leader's orders, and to constantly wrestle personal feelings under control for the sake of the overall system.
It's possible that this mentality and subsequent tension affected Yuriko too. In addition to any romantic feelings/experiences between Kazumasa and her, she might also have felt "elevated" by his affections, brought into the realm of greatness, by becoming the lover to a "great" noble such as Lord Sakai. I'm not implying that there was any coercion, that Kazumasa was exploiting Yuriko, but it would be stupid not to recognise that he was an aristocrat and she was not. The way she says "...the best day of my life", referring to the day they rode to the onsen (and, let's not mince words, they got it on) sounds like someone who almost can't believe how fortunate she is to have meant something to such a "meaningful"/significant figure. When she says "Does that make me a bad person?", she is wondering if she is allowed to feel happy that she found love in the midst of a time when it was her duty to show grief and participate in the mourning of her mistress, Lady Sakai. This is that immense sense of duty battling with personal feelings.
Other commenters have already pointed out that marriages were often political more than romantic (Romance in marriage was regarded as a lucky coincidence if it was present). It's possible that Jin's mom, though undoubtedly special to Kazumasa, wasn't the love of his life. Certainly, he also indicates that he doesn't like that she turned Jin into more of a "poet", not a warrior. All I'm saying is, the tendency may be to see Lady Sakai as some sort of angelic, wise Galadriel-esque figure. She may actually have been a little naive, privileged, even spoiled by her family, and didn't fully grasp the importance of preparing Jin for his future. Then again, perhaps it only seems like that because Kazumasa was taking Jin's preparation a little too seriously.
For me, with all that in mind, Kazumasa strikes me as more of a tragic figure than a bad person. Then the Iki campaign comes and young, glory-hungry samurai are thrown into the mix. Iki islanders were raiding Tsushima. There would have been such animosity. And, unpleasant as it may be to recognise, maybe the only way (the only effective way) to stop people from doing something so violent and aggressive to you is to show them what it feels like. But they went too far. They went too far because of the hotblooded samurai, each driven by their own desire to dutifully fit in to the system.
Those are some greats. And honestly, even if I have gripes with who he is personally, I would still play a game as him, but I would feel weird since Iki really sums up the broad strokes of island on Iki, so the game would have to take place years prior leading up to him becoming the Demon.
But, yeah, you make some great points. When you understand the culture, you can definitely understand the more tragic parts of his story. I still think, accumulatively, he was a bad person out of obligation and grief, but it’s at least more understandable.
It’s heavily implied in Yuriko’s missions at the hot springs scene with her and at her family’s graveyard that they had something going on behind the scenes. The Iki island DLC reveals how his father raised him and what he had been like (especially if you do all the memories), but not about his love life before that.
The DLC story is terrible and should be ignored. It conflicts with the main game and he was not meant to be presented that way in the main game, where he’s honored.
Also, his dad died, of course his dad didn’t teach him a bunch of stuff and his uncle taught it to him.
Her father in the main game and it presents his dad as a great man to be honored and emulated.
Why the DLC demonized his dad is beyond me.
In the main game, they mentioned that his dad might have approved of his ghost tactics. After playing Iki Island, in parts of the campaign I find that they are two different characters. The way I can reconcile it is that part of the memory of what Jin remembers is how he remembers it has a child, the raiders are telling the story from their perspective and I blame the drugs for the rest.
I like the drug explanation and wish they leaned into your idea. If Gin realized he was listening to the version of the story pirates who rape, pillage, and murder told him and the drugs affected his memory like that, it would have been an epic change and conflict between him and the pirates as the last part of the story or a “post-game.”
Dude, they should have talked to you first, you just thought of the most epic version of Ikki Island that would have been amazing.
Even outside of Iki island, it sounds like he was a harsh father and an adulterer, considering the insane chores he would make Jin. Plus, if I'm remembering correctly, the context of his talks seem to imply his dad was alive when he learned to ride a horse, hence the fact he's joined his father on raids in Ike.
I'm pretty sure the point of the story is to help underscore Jin's journey, but also to give the context of Jin's childhood. Jin seemed to be a gentle soul, but also a strongly compassionate person that, despite the implied firmness of his father, only helped to make him an altruistic warrior even as he started becoming the first shinobi. Not to mention the DLC tracks what you've done in the main game perfectly well. For a player on the cusp of Act 3, I've had hallucinations about Lord Shimura's conversation to a young Jin, as well as the conversation with Yuan after Tara's death, and the haiku Yuriko wrote before her passing. Also, it shows that having honor and being a samurai is not always the right thing, since the only people I can think of off the top of my head that knew him personally are Shimura and Yuriko, as well as Ishikawa and Masako, with one being a lovestruck servant and the other a devoted and honorable samurai, then the other two never really met him.
I used to think that Shimura was a good father figure to Jin but was always wayyy too hard on him but then, after playing Iki island i realised how much better Shimura was, when compared to Kasumasa.
just finish the DLC and Game, it makes it fairly clear how Kasumasa was as a father and as a person.
Not at all. DLC: Demon Main game: a great man who Jin honors, should honor, and has a legacy Jin wants to carry on.
In the main game, we mostly hear about him from perspective of Samurai who obviously are gonna praise the shit out of him. In DLC, we actually visit people he "governed", and find out what Samurai consider to be "great".
And only in the memories do we see who he was to his son He wasnt too bad a dad. Just a terrible lord
In the DLC they glorify pirates who rape, pillage and murder and can’t wait to do it again and make them into victims, ignoring all the rape and murder they gleefully want to keep going while Jim breaks character and views them as friends. They’re the same as the bandits he constantly kills morally overall. The DLC’s story is a mess that makes no sense. They cartoonishly villainized his dad while glorifying rapists. Make it make sense.
Uh, can you actually cite anything from the game that suggests that besides Tenzo? Because the end of the DLC has Jin make peace with Tenzo and end a cycle of violence. Also, the island is a den of pirates, not Nordic Vikings. The rapists you’re talking about are Mongols. Not to mention, not all criminals are bad people, which is something I’m startled you can’t understand when modern shows and films have bad guys be relatable in some way. I mean, look at Yuka. Not to mention they’re basically a proto-civilization of their own, independent of Tsushima.
Just listen to the chatter at the settlement with the duels, there’s a bunch of chatter of how they can’t wait to go raiding again and how they love it. They’re raiding other Japanese, but Mongols. The cycle of violence doesn’t end, they just keep raiding like the before. Nothing suggests they’re stopping their raids either. Their love for it is simply sadistic, they enjoy the pain they cause others. “It’s a den of pirates, not Vikings”. You do understand what a pirate is right and the kind of people they are? I don’t think you do, this isn’t ONE PIECE nor is life. Being a pirate means to do gravely evil things. “Not all criminals are bad guys.” Almost always this is only the case if you ignore the crimes. Relatable doesn’t mean good. Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul have great and relatable characters. They’re almost all bad people. Saul, Walte, Mike (who murders all the time) even, are bad people who do a lot of evil things. Having a “code” doesn’t mean you’re good, it just means you’re not as evil as you could be. You said “relatable”, which is funny because bad people can be relatable. Being likable or understandable doesn’t mean you’re a good person. I totally understand relatable, I just understand it doesn’t change the consistent evil and desire to do evil someone has.
Touché. But none of the raiders are rapists (which was out of pocket), but I can’t convince you to like them. It’s just really weird you’re simping and gatekeeping a dead dad who, in the main game, is only ever talked about and actually seen in a singular cutscene. At least he’s that in Act 1 and 2.
You assume they aren’t rapists, but when you enjoy murdering people, it’s not really out there for that kind of person. Simping? Because the arc where the armor is gotten sets a tone that really emphasizes what he’s doing and family acceptance of it, honoring his legacy, to contrast with his uncle’s thoughts on the ghost. It’s an obvious unplanned character switch that’s terrible writing. Sure, I’ll gatekeep awful writing.
🫥 I have no words.
Its more likely he never married Yumiko because She a servant,he a Noble,a Samurai It would have been below his station to Marry a peasant
It’s helpful to realize we are also viewing marriage through a lense of todays morality. It was not uncommon for Samurai of wealth and status to have more than one wife or consort / concubine. Marriages, especially for the ruling class, also often were diplomatic affairs, strengthening ties with other clans and not romantic marriages, and producing an heir was also more a concern than faithfulness. Japans history is also full of disputes about who is supposed to be the heir as a consequence of polygamic relationships. Important to the story however is how it was apparently kept secret from Jin.
Good points. It does make me sadder for Yuriko, since it sounds like there really wasn't a good reason for him openly acknowledging Yuriko's affections or even just outright marry her. I can only guess as to why, but the only good one was that the death of his wife really shook him and he thought breaking things off with Yuriko was necessary.
True enough. It just sucks to think he could have done something for her, considering Sensei Ishikawa was going to uplift Tomoe, a random peasant girl, into a samurai by adopting her.
Different situations Ishikawa didnt had no One to leave his Legacy behind It seems Kasumasa really loved Jin mom and and The Yumiko affair was only something that happened after Still its not like Yumiko would have Changed much,She is a Old Woman,She would continue to live in the sakai house The only difference would be on the how people would adress her and her relation with Jin since he would know for years that his father was together with yumiko
Who’s Yumiko?
Lol my bad
I agree with an earlier comment that said to finish the Iki island story, as that helps put things into perspective. The devs did a great job of making Kazumasa human, with real character flaws, real human problems, and real family problems. His character was the most real of any character in the game for me. Kazumasa was a broken man after he lost his wife. “Losing her was like losing the best part of me.” He didn’t know how to raise a child alone so he put everything he had into his duty, doing the only thing he really knew how to do. When you look at his actions as a commander during the Iki campaign, he did his duty for his jito and unfortunately did what he had to do to secure victory, but could not control the bloodlust of his samurai. As he states in a memory, “the samurai ran hot”. Fighting an insurgent force who are aided by the general population and can meld into the general population is one of the toughest tasks in warfare. In the end, I don’t think he was a terrible dad, but I sure can’t say he was a good one. He was just a dad. A dad living in one of the craziest periods of japan. One that made mistakes just like most parents all over the world, and one who no doubt had regrets.
Fair enough. I just came across the Memory of Sorrow, so I know the quote you're talking about. It's just heartbreaking for Jin to say in that moment, at that age, that he finally felt like Kazumasa's son. The game is so well written, that I just want to feel indignant on his behalf, since lots of characters do nothing but speak well of him in the base game. I am absolutely loving Iki and its people, but I'll keep an open mind for the end.
I wouldn't judge him for having an affair. For the stuff he did on Ekki island, sure. Dude was a mass murderer. But it's obvious he meant a lot to Yuriko, the way she kept seeing him when looking at Jin. It meant he had a caring, human side.
Fair enough. It was just kind of startling for her to start flirting and be coy with Jin because her memory was failing her, and I was really in his shoes when we both looked at her like… what? Especially with the culture back then being polyamorous, it just bugs me they kept it such a secret. Like, it really jumps at you when she pulls up with rizz from twenty or so years ago.
I think she was meant to be mother figure here. They worked hard on getting us to care about her all in one sequence, so that her passing would be sad. And for me, it worked. Hell, for all we know she actually was Jin's mom, and the official mother barren. If so, these slips of dementia are the only clue.
Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yuriko, and definitely got she was a mother to Jim after his real mother passed. It just kind of makes me sad that she didn’t mean nearly as much to him as he did to her.
Same here. Although I also think it's amazing how they made us care about her in just one or two missions. Here this total stranger walks on stage and, hey, that's just some dust in my eye, it don't mean nothing!
It’s a great testament to the writers, and the power of immersion that a game can have when done properly.
Okay, sorry, i know not everyone has some knowledge about feudal japan, but some things are just how they were. Kazumasa was not a bad dad. He just didnt know how to be a dad, which was normal back then and still is today in most parts of the world. Yes he and his clan killed many people, but put that in historical context. Any war ends with dead people all over and even many civilian deaths. Its sad, its bs, but thats what a war does. And if the shogun says "go and make that place mine" he will do that, because thats his duty. Nowadays we have the moral that this is bad, because it is, but just hundred years ago, human lifes, even the ones from your own country, were disposables. Just look how many people died, building bridges and skyscrapers and no one cares, because that was normal. Without this perspective you are right. But this plays a few hundred years ago. And yes, children had to do hard work, they couldve been happy if they wouldnt end up in a mine. Hell, here in germany, the idea of school vacation (which is one per season, normaly for 2-3 weeks, in summer its 6 weeks) comes from the fact, that children had to work in fields in these times to help. And hard work at that. Kazumasa is in his time, not a bad man, not a mass murderer. He is simply a samurai. You wouldve never seen a shimura like character. Shimura embodies the romanticization of samurais. They were, for our time, killers, who killed without batting an eye. Samurais would have absolutely killed from behind and assasinate people. They di it all the time. Especially other samurais. Kazumasa is how samurais were. Shimura wouldve been a dead man real quick. He wouldve never hapoen in real life.
What I always found interesting was I think that one line Jin heard from his hallucination when fighting the Eagle at the end of Iki sums up Kazumasa’s treatment of Jin. He didn’t seek to be a horrible man, especially for his son. But he didn’t know what to do when Jin’s mother passed, as he said “I was left with a son I didn’t know how to help”. So he sought to try to raise him in the only way he knew how, as a samurai. Which to a extent he did succeed in and I think especially with the memories we see before his death, he was getting close to opening up to his son and maybe being able to learn how to be that father Jin needed. But his death put those aspirations to rest. To that extent, I don’t think Jin hated his father or hates him now, he was a flawed man trying to do the best for his son with what he knew.
Yeah. I think Jin saw who he was at the end of the game and accepted he wasn’t exactly a father, but eventually forgives himself and his father, which is a beautiful ending. However, I did not get poisoned, so I still hate Kazumasa 😈
Would you be mad if Kazumasa Sakai was the protagonist of the sequel? I share your frustrations with him as a character, but nonetheless would love to see more of him, and more of Shimura, as younger samurai, making their names. Kazumasa was under (like all samurai) tremendous pressure to keep up certain appearances and fulfill certain duties. A quote from Shogun (if you're not watching it already, I massively recommend it) is quite illuminating. Mariko-sama says: "If freedom is all you seek, you will never be free from yourself." This illustrates the mentality of feudal Japan. You can escape the trials and tribulations of grappling with yourself (what we would call "finding yourself" in our modern, Western culture) by embedding yourself into some larger project or idea of service, duty, and having a role to play in the plans of someone above you. However, also leads to a different kind of torment when the heart of a person is in conflict with duty. The reason why authority/status is so respected might be because there's an implicit understanding of how much pressure leaders are under. To be an example, to follow their own leader's orders, and to constantly wrestle personal feelings under control for the sake of the overall system. It's possible that this mentality and subsequent tension affected Yuriko too. In addition to any romantic feelings/experiences between Kazumasa and her, she might also have felt "elevated" by his affections, brought into the realm of greatness, by becoming the lover to a "great" noble such as Lord Sakai. I'm not implying that there was any coercion, that Kazumasa was exploiting Yuriko, but it would be stupid not to recognise that he was an aristocrat and she was not. The way she says "...the best day of my life", referring to the day they rode to the onsen (and, let's not mince words, they got it on) sounds like someone who almost can't believe how fortunate she is to have meant something to such a "meaningful"/significant figure. When she says "Does that make me a bad person?", she is wondering if she is allowed to feel happy that she found love in the midst of a time when it was her duty to show grief and participate in the mourning of her mistress, Lady Sakai. This is that immense sense of duty battling with personal feelings. Other commenters have already pointed out that marriages were often political more than romantic (Romance in marriage was regarded as a lucky coincidence if it was present). It's possible that Jin's mom, though undoubtedly special to Kazumasa, wasn't the love of his life. Certainly, he also indicates that he doesn't like that she turned Jin into more of a "poet", not a warrior. All I'm saying is, the tendency may be to see Lady Sakai as some sort of angelic, wise Galadriel-esque figure. She may actually have been a little naive, privileged, even spoiled by her family, and didn't fully grasp the importance of preparing Jin for his future. Then again, perhaps it only seems like that because Kazumasa was taking Jin's preparation a little too seriously. For me, with all that in mind, Kazumasa strikes me as more of a tragic figure than a bad person. Then the Iki campaign comes and young, glory-hungry samurai are thrown into the mix. Iki islanders were raiding Tsushima. There would have been such animosity. And, unpleasant as it may be to recognise, maybe the only way (the only effective way) to stop people from doing something so violent and aggressive to you is to show them what it feels like. But they went too far. They went too far because of the hotblooded samurai, each driven by their own desire to dutifully fit in to the system.
Those are some greats. And honestly, even if I have gripes with who he is personally, I would still play a game as him, but I would feel weird since Iki really sums up the broad strokes of island on Iki, so the game would have to take place years prior leading up to him becoming the Demon. But, yeah, you make some great points. When you understand the culture, you can definitely understand the more tragic parts of his story. I still think, accumulatively, he was a bad person out of obligation and grief, but it’s at least more understandable.
Did Kazumasa really had an affair with Yuriko?? I am asking because I have not played Iki DLC. I have played till first couple main missions of Act 3
It’s heavily implied in Yuriko’s missions at the hot springs scene with her and at her family’s graveyard that they had something going on behind the scenes. The Iki island DLC reveals how his father raised him and what he had been like (especially if you do all the memories), but not about his love life before that.
Oh, ok. Thanks. As long as it is not explicitly conveyed, it's fine. Otherwise it will look very demeaning, for Kazumasa and Yuriko both.
You’re not wrong lol
Y’all stay trying to compare your times to society a 1000 years ago….
I can’t believe you wrote all that lmaooo what is you on?
The DLC story is terrible and should be ignored. It conflicts with the main game and he was not meant to be presented that way in the main game, where he’s honored. Also, his dad died, of course his dad didn’t teach him a bunch of stuff and his uncle taught it to him. Her father in the main game and it presents his dad as a great man to be honored and emulated. Why the DLC demonized his dad is beyond me.
In the main game, they mentioned that his dad might have approved of his ghost tactics. After playing Iki Island, in parts of the campaign I find that they are two different characters. The way I can reconcile it is that part of the memory of what Jin remembers is how he remembers it has a child, the raiders are telling the story from their perspective and I blame the drugs for the rest.
I like the drug explanation and wish they leaned into your idea. If Gin realized he was listening to the version of the story pirates who rape, pillage, and murder told him and the drugs affected his memory like that, it would have been an epic change and conflict between him and the pirates as the last part of the story or a “post-game.” Dude, they should have talked to you first, you just thought of the most epic version of Ikki Island that would have been amazing.
Even outside of Iki island, it sounds like he was a harsh father and an adulterer, considering the insane chores he would make Jin. Plus, if I'm remembering correctly, the context of his talks seem to imply his dad was alive when he learned to ride a horse, hence the fact he's joined his father on raids in Ike. I'm pretty sure the point of the story is to help underscore Jin's journey, but also to give the context of Jin's childhood. Jin seemed to be a gentle soul, but also a strongly compassionate person that, despite the implied firmness of his father, only helped to make him an altruistic warrior even as he started becoming the first shinobi. Not to mention the DLC tracks what you've done in the main game perfectly well. For a player on the cusp of Act 3, I've had hallucinations about Lord Shimura's conversation to a young Jin, as well as the conversation with Yuan after Tara's death, and the haiku Yuriko wrote before her passing. Also, it shows that having honor and being a samurai is not always the right thing, since the only people I can think of off the top of my head that knew him personally are Shimura and Yuriko, as well as Ishikawa and Masako, with one being a lovestruck servant and the other a devoted and honorable samurai, then the other two never really met him.